162 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Jxmz 



They increase the cost of harvesting the crop, 

 and lessen the value of the grain. 



Thjy also greatly increase the cost of tending 

 the growing crop. 



These are reasons sufficient, brother farmer, 

 ■why no weeds should be allowed to grow among 

 your crops. We are not sure but some of the 

 transatlantic laws would prove a blessing to farm- 

 ers here. We are inclined to think that the corn, 

 wheat, barley, and oat crops would be considera- 

 bly increased, per acre, if no weeds were allowed 

 to grow among them. 



Some of the most important items of June work 

 are those of making butter and cheese. This sum- 

 mer, we hope the high prices at which these arti- 

 cles are selling will lead to more care than has 

 usnally been observed. A writer pertinently says ; 



May, June and September are the dairy months. 

 The best butter and the best cheese are usually 

 made in these months. If you are not neat, you 

 do not know how to make cheese or butter. Un- 

 cleanliness affects not only the looks, but the qual- 

 ity of butter. Broad, shallow glass pans are the 

 be%t, but the most expensive. In these milk sel- 

 dom turns sour in summer thunder storms. Tin 

 pans are good, but unless the dairy woman is 

 scrupulously neat, the seams will be filled with 

 residuum of milk, and become very foul, giving a 

 flavor to each successive panful. The principal 

 requisites for prime butter are good cows, good 

 pasture for them, clean pans, cool, airy cellars, 

 clean churns. Let the cream be churned before 

 it is sour or bitter ; and when the butter comes, 

 drive out all the buttermilk. 



But every labor now is an important one, as no 

 crop can be brought to perfection without giving 

 it proper care at this period. All must be active 

 and systematic, but not to press so urgently as to 

 injure the body or deprive the mind of its needed 

 food from day to day. We cannot better close 

 our brief essay upon June, than in the glowing 

 language of Dr. Beecher : 



June ! Rest ! This is the year's bower. Sit 

 down within it. Wipe from thy brow the toil. 

 The elements are thy servants. The dews bring 

 thee jewels. 



The winds bring perfume. The earth shows 

 thee all her treasures. The forest sings to thee. 

 The air is all sweetness, as if the angels of God 

 had gone through it, bearing spices homeward. 

 The storms are but as flocks of mighty birds that 

 spread their wings and sing in the high heavens ! 

 Speak to God, now, and say, "0, Father, where 

 art Thou ?" And out of every flower, and tree, 

 and silver pool, and twined thicket, a voice will 

 come, "God is in me." The earth cries to the 

 heavens, "God is here." And the heavens cry to 

 the earth, "God is here." The sea claims Him. 

 The land hath Him. His footsteps are upon the 

 deep ! He sitteth upon the circle of the earth ! 



O, sunny joys of the sunny month, yet soft and 

 temperate, how soon will the eager months that 

 come burning from the equator, scorch you ! 



13T A cheating grocer should reform his weighs. 



SPRING CONCERT. 



BY MRS. L. H. 8IG0UB.NEY. 



There's a concert, a concert of gladness and glee. 

 The programme is rich, and the thickets are free, 

 In a grand, vaulted hall, where there's room and to 



spare, 

 With no gas light to eat up the oxygen there. 

 The musicians excel in their wonderful art, 

 They have compass of voice, and the gamut by heart ; 

 They have travelled abroad in the winter recess, 

 And sang to vast crowds with unbounded success, 

 And now 'tis a favor and privilege rare 

 Their arrival to hail, and their melodies share. 



These exquisite minstrels a fashion have set, 

 Which they hope you'll comply with and may not re- 

 gret. 

 They don't keep late hours, for they've always been 



told 

 Twould injure their voices and make them look old. 

 They invite you to come if you have a fine ear, 

 To the garden or grove, their rehearsals to hear ; 

 Their chorus is full ere the sunbeam is born, 

 Their music the sweetest at breaking of morn- 

 It was learned at Heaven's gate, with its rapturous 



lays, 

 And may teach you, perhaps, its own spirit of praise, 



.PLANTING AT INTERVALS. 

 The Mark Lane Express has the following upon 

 this subject. Like everything else in farming, a 

 sound judgment must be exercised m this matter. 

 As a general thing, our people plant too close, we 

 think. On rich, moist soils, where the plants 

 reach great luxuriance, there must, of course, be 

 ample room for light and air, in order to secure 

 perfection in the crop. On light, pine plain lands, 

 even though tolerably well manured, the crop will 

 flourish better planted at moderate distances rath- 

 er than in very wide ones. 



The subject of wide intervals between the rows 

 of all sorts of cropping is so extensive that we 

 shall devote a paper to some circumstances bear- 

 ing upon it. Meanwhile, we record it as our 

 opinion that the drilling of beans at very broad 

 distances, and pursuing a system of tillage be- 

 tween, is not nearly so generally adopted as it 

 might be with very great success. We have seen* 

 winter beans in single rows five feet apart yield- 

 ing fifty imperial bnshels per acre ; the manuring, 

 of course, being very high, the tillage exceeding- 

 ly deep, and the hoeing followed up with frequen- 

 cy. And yet there are persons who are sceptical 

 as to the possibility of so few rows being able to 

 contain pods enough for such a magnificent yield. 



BONE DUST. 



Mr. Cummings, the agricultural editor of the 

 N. Y. Observer, says : 



When entering upon the cultivation of our pres- 

 ent farm, we asked our predecessor what field 

 would give a crop of potatoes without the appli- 

 cation of fresh barnyard manure, as we feared the 

 application of such in inducing "the rot." A five-- 

 acre field was named. We carefully planted and 

 cultivated it, and found no rot among the pota- . 

 toes, but the yield of the whole field did not sup- 

 ply the tables of the farm for the year, so exhaust- 

 ed was the land. In the autumn we plowed and 

 sowed the same field with rye, applying twenty- 

 five bushels of bone dust to the acre. Such was 

 the immediate effect of the application, that when 



